On: Self Abandonment as Survival
Forgotten wants and desires
Perhaps the most recurring thing I hear from clients is a desire to curb tendencies and habits they describe as ‘people-pleasing’ or having ‘poor boundaries’. It’s a tricky thing to approach for a number of reasons, most notably because it can be rooted in so many different things that are rarely obvious. Often times, our persistent drive to accommodate and acclimate to the needs of others requires an abandonment of our own wants and desires. I speak from experience when I say this next part: in extreme cases, our wants and desires are not hidden from others and kept in a safe place for us to remember and hold on to. They are forgotten as part of an adaptive survival strategy.
“What is happening? Is this joy? Are you just trying to fit in? You’re forcing it, aren’t you? Can you be sure this is really how you feel? ”
We can forget what inspired us in our earliest years, what it felt like to move freely toward those things we are most curious about, what it felt like to want anything at all. I couldn’t tell you how many times in my life I’ve started to feel something— I mean anything from happiness to sadness to anger— only to feel the sharp sting of scrutiny.
Noticing the difference in me
As the gulf between myself and my present experience widened, the sense of despair and frustration became all-consuming. It always culminated in the same thing, posed both as a genuine question and ferocious indictment: What the hell is wrong with me?
The thing is, there isn’t anything wrong with me. Not in the way the question implied and certainly not if you saw me in my family system. I was chastising myself for an adaptation I made in order to survive in an unsafe and unstable family system. It feels natural to attack ourselves over stuff like this, that’s what we learned to do. But the absurdity of turning on ourselves is laid bare when you think of it another way.
Imagine you are born in the United States and grow up hearing and speaking exclusively English. This is how you orient yourself and navigate the world! It’s on signs telling you what’s what, it’s how you ask for food or, how you get what you need, and how you connect with others. Knowing this language is your lifeline.
Now imagine you are plopped down in a remote area of another country, let’s say Germany. You will undoubtedly recognize the letters, though they are not always as you know them, and some words may seem similar enough to intuit with context. You overhear others speaking to one another in sounds that don’t feel at all familiar. It’s clear they understand each other, but you grasp nothing. The moment someone starts speaking to you, especially if under the assumption that you are fluent in German, you will have no idea what you are supposed to grab onto. You won’t know how to respond or what to think. Your interlocutor may sense your confusion and give up but will you think to yourself ‘what the hell is wrong with me?’. That doesn’t seem right. You don’t speak German. You were never taught. You could have learned it growing up, sure, but without consistent need and exposure it’s unlikely you would have adapted to it like you did with English.
Now take it a step further and imagine your family asserted– both explicitly and implicitly– that English is the only language in the world. This is how everyone speaks and there are a number of words and phrases you should already know. There is little room for mistakes, as every time you say the wrong thing or respond in ways that don’t line up with their expectations you are chastised and belittled.
How do you not know this already? After everything we’ve done for you, you still aren’t getting it? Your cousin isn’t making these mistakes and she doesn’t need all this extra help. What is the matter with you!?
the scaffolding of survival
In our earliest years, survival is correlated with staying in the good graces of our caregivers. Without them, we die. This makes shame an important means of knowing when we’ve done something “unacceptable” so we can avoid doing it again. There are other posts on our blog about shame, so I’ll provide a link if you want to read more about it. For our sake, I’ll just say that when we are very young it is in our best interest to assume we are at fault and our caregivers are infallible unless they take the time to introduce us to their humanity and messiness.
So, of course, we would assume it’s all our fault when we feel uncomfortable or notice differences in perception between us and others. Looking for nuance is just making excuses and moving away from all-or-nothing thinking is, while conceptually quite nice, not readily available to our bodies. It doesn’t feel true. Sometimes it’s even a grace we afford to others, but with us it feels different; the rules of compassion don’t apply to us,, or it’s simply our lot to feel this way.
So why is self-compassion so important, and why can it feel so uncomfortable to consider?
The Value of Being Compassionate Toward Yourself
For adult children of dysfunctional family systems, the idea of self-compassion can trigger intense defenses. We can become concerned that if we aren’t on our own asses 24/7 then our lives will fall apart. We’ll give in to our vices, we’ll laze about while our lives and relationships crumble. It’s especially difficult when we’ve bullied ourselves into things we might actually be proud of. The pathways to my musical abilities, getting through college, and my career were paved through self-aimed derision and abuse. The pain was immense. A lot more suffering took place than was necessary to get through it all. When we are cruel to ourselves, we get to play the role of abuser and abused. Both generate guilt and shame, things we are highly sensitive to.
Being kind to yourself does not mean blowing smoke up your own ass or telling yourself everything is fine when it isn’t. That’s the polar opposite of what you’re doing now by assuming fault and belittling yourself. Let’s find room for nuance. What if you treated yourself like a complex person? What if you considered the language analogy I gave above and recognized the resourcefulness alongside the limits of your adaptive strategies?
Because it can be so difficult to see yourself as worthy of kindness, it may be easiest to start by noticing negative self-talk and allowing room for complexity. Do your best to let the feelings exist without judgment and tend to your discomfort like you would a child. Acknowledge the pain. Acknowledge that you’re doing your best with the tools you have. Acknowledge that you’d like to try something new when the harsh inner critic chimes in.
It seems so simple, just acknowledging and validating that you are in pain, but it’s a kindness you were rarely afforded in childhood. It often helps to imagine I’m speaking directly to myself as a child. Perhaps that could be helpful to you too. Kindness and security are things you have always deserved.
Working through the ramifications of a tough childhood is highly rewarding and unfortunately, very painful. Being kind to yourself is less the ‘cure’ in my view and more so the thing that lays the foundation for growth and a necessary resource for when things get tough. There is a lot more on the topics of self-abandonment and self-compassion than I can go into here. I’ll provide some books I’ve found incredibly helpful to me.
Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving by Pete Walker
Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristen Neff
Featured therapist author:
Liam DeGeorgio, AMFT, is a neurodivergent associate marriage & family therapist who strives to challenge society’s expectations and perceptions of ‘normal’. He lives with ADHD, OCD, and PTSD and enjoys working with clients wanting to challenge toxic masculinity, embrace feminism & anti-racism, and adults with childhood trauma. He loves playing the drums, reading books, and his four cats.
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